10 Marvel Graphic Novels You Must Read Before You Die

5. Marvels

Marvels #1 Human Torch
Alex Ross/Marvel Comics

You only have to utter the words "Alex" and "Ross" sequentially to get comics fans excited, with the artist's photorealistic style having made him stand out among other artists in the medium.

He's one of the industry's most recognisable talents, and while he's mainly done cover work for the past few years, Ross is able to boast a fine bibliography of comic book greats, including Kingdom Come on DC's end, and Marvels on... well, Marvel's.

The book - released in 1994 and written by Kurt Busiek - centres around everyday photographer Phil Sheldon. Its genius, however, truly lies in its historical motif, with Busiek electing to follow Sheldon not from a contemporary angle, but rather from 1939 onwards. Doing so affords Ross the ability to illustrate the Marvel Universe right on through World War II all the way up to the Bullpen era of the sixties, and it looks magnificent.

Providing readers with another perspective from which to observe Marvel's most iconic events, Marvels stands out today for being one of the most unique books in their company catalogue. No True Believer should go without it.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.